MOTHER
by Hyliian
Summary: Alex Mercer isn't as alone as he might think he is... A one-shot attempting to bridge the gap between Prototype 1 & 2.


He looked so broken… she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed herself to his back, brushing her mind gently against his, trying to soothe him. Rage was what _they_ wanted. They wanted him to act without thought, to be reduced to a mere monster. She would not allow it. She would not allow them to break him as they had broken her.

"_Do not listen to them," _she whispered in his ear, running a hand beneath his hood and scratching through the short hair she found there at the back of his neck. _"This is what they want."_

He listened, of course. All her children listen to her when she speaks, even if they do not acknowledge her. He turned his head to the side, and she saw him glance at her out of one silver-blue eye. She smiled comfortingly and hugged him tighter, enveloping the turmoil in his mind with the calmness of her own, silencing the whispers, blocking out the screams, giving him the peace he seeks for, and feels him relax minutely in her hold.

That is what she had waited for. She slides around to his front and leans into his chest, smiling at the heat of him, at the _reality_ that is Alex Mercer. She digs her fingers into his jacket, letting tendrils of biomass crawl over and around his shoulders. He holds her gaze with his own, emotionless, revealing nothing, but she smiles up at him, simply content to be allowed this near to him.

He used to keep her walled away, locked in with the rest of the voices and the whispers, but only _she_ is sentient. Only she was enough like him to remain aware. She did not resent him for what he had done. He had been confused, afraid, tricked into turning against her by the humans. She had forgiven him before he had done anything worthy of forgiveness.

A mother always forgives her children.

This way, they could be together forever. She hummed as she pressed herself tight to his front, relishing this rare moment of contact he allowed her. It was better this way, she thinks. Now she can always be with him, can always comfort him when he is afraid, can soothe his fears and nurture him into what he was meant to be. He rarely lowered the barriers holding her back, but there were times when he let them fall.

She never lets the other voices overwhelm him at those times. A reward, she muses, for letting her near. She holds the screams back, pushes them into silence, gives him a rare moment of peace and silence as she holds him close and whispers to him that everything will be all right. The night the Sister's condition had worsened had been one of those times. He had dropped the barriers away and she had gone to him, holding back the voices, and embraced him. It had been the first time he had given her freedom.

The first of many.

She rested her chin on his chest and looked up into his face, all hard lines and anger, and smiled proudly at him. He was everything she had ever wanted him to be. Strong. Merciless. Agile. A god among mortals. He would have made an excellent Father to her children. But that was not to be. He was alone now in the world, and she sought to ease that ache whenever she could. For he was not quite as alone as he thought. Not on the inside.

"It's never enough for them," he growls, and his voice alone is enough to make the virus inside her hum and press closer. He is what she could never have been. Perfection. She treasures this moment; he never speaks to her. He only listens. "I protect them, I hold myself back from tearing their city apart, and they repay me with hatred and violence."

"_They are beneath you," _she whispers back, brushing her fingertips against his cheek, and he looked down at her through eyes like ice. _"They will never appreciate what you offer them."_

"I just…" he sighed and looked away, glaring at nothing as she rests her cheek against his jacket, pulsing with the same warmth he always has. "I just want them to…" he growls and gives up, refusing to look back at her. He is tense now. Rigid. She frowns in concern, but she understands.

"…_accept you."_ She smiles when he looks quickly back at her. _"I am the only one who loves you for what you are." _She reaches up and takes his head in both hands, running her fingers in little circles behind his ears as his hood slips off his head. _"The humans do not understand. You are so far above them that they tremble in your shadow."_

"But…"

"_Shh…" _she coos soothingly, pulling his forehead down to press it against hers. She feels his arms go around her waist and she beams in response. He never touches her, either. _"Before we became One, I sought acceptance as well," _she confides, voice warm. She knows she has his full attention. _"I sought to make the humans like us, to give them my gift, to give them my Voice. But they resisted, and they turned you against me." _She closed her eyes and pressed her face into his chest, feeling his chin on top of her head. _"I failed to convince them, to convince _you_. Can you imagine it? A world where everyone is connected? Where everyone is like us, accepts us, knows us for what we are, and understands?"_

"…I can't," he admits, holding her tight enough to snap the spine of anyone else. But she is like him, and she only smiles into his jacket. "I can't."

"_I can," _she whispers, and feels the silence that follows like a tangible thing. _"I can see it now…" _she turns in his arms and rests her head on his shoulder, looking out at the emptiness that is his mind when she is there to hold back the others. _"No more war. No more sickness. No more chaos. No more death. A world united in a single Mind, a single Consciousness. _Our_ Consciousness. It would have been beautiful."_

Alex's grip tightens and she can feel the tension in him. She reaches out with her mind and attempts again to soothe him, and this time he does not resist her. She drapes her consciousness over his own like a blanket, brushing away his anger, his worries, his doubt, and he relaxes at her back, the rigidity draining from his posture like water.

"…it sounds wonderful," he whispers, and she smiles gently up at him. "But… they would never accept it."

"_No," _she agrees sadly, snuggling into his embrace, relishing it, knowing she is not likely to ever receive another. _"They are not like us. They fight the inevitable. They fight to keep their sickness, their taint, their plagues. They fear what we offer them, because it would destroy their world of hate and death. They are incapable of imagining a world without suffering, and are not willing to suffer to achieve it."_

"What do I do?" he asked her, desperate, voice low and uneasy. "I have to look out for Dana, but… I'm tired of being alone."

"_She is important to you," _she observed, curious and fascinated. _"The sister of the man who created you. The one who sacrificed his flesh so that you may live."_

Alex hesitated, and she took his moment of distraction to turn again, holding him close and letting her arms come apart into a myriad of tendrils, wrapping securely around him, letting him know that she is there, that she is like him, that she _understands._

"_She will never understand you. She is human, and she will fight for her world of pain and sickness."_

"She is my sister."

"_She is your anchor. She is the one you fight for." _She hummed, feeling sorrow cross her expression. _"She is human. She will age, and she will die. You will lose her to the things she fights to keep."_

Alex pulled back, and she let him go. She released him, and he stepped away, staring at her with hopeless eyes. She mourned the loss of him, but she understands. She always understands. "I… I won't let her. I'll find a way to wake her up. I'll find a cure, and I'll tell her what I am, and she'll understand. She'll accept me, and I won't be alone anymore."

She smiled sadly at him. _"She will never understand."_

He lowers his head, fingers clenching into tight fists, and she steps closer. She stands before him, compassion and understanding written across her face, and waits for him to look up and meet her eyes. "I can't lose her," he whispers hoarsely. "I… I can't. She's all I have."

She reaches over and takes his hand in hers, letting her skin break apart into tendrils that prick at his palm and wrist. He looks down at their joined hands, and she smiles as his own hand comes apart as well, his biomass crawling up her arm until it impossible to tell where one of them ends and the other begins.

"_Then make for her a world in which there is no death, there is no sickness, there is no pain. Make for her a world she cannot imagine."_

Alex looks up and she holds his gaze with her own. "I… I don't know how."

She smiles broadly, stepping into him and pressing their entwined hands between them. _"I do."_

Something in him hardens, the last layer of reserve falls away like dust, and it is not Alex Mercer that looks back into her eyes, but ZEUS. "Show me."

She smiled. Her children always listened in the end.

* * *

**A/N: **_Yeah, so I'm breaking my own rule here. I just couldn't NOT post anything. It was actually painful not to; I am such a bad person, writing fan fiction instead of working on my book 24/7, but what can I say? I'm addicted. I've always liked Elizabeth Greene, despite her role as antagonist in P1. I had great fun writing from her point of view, and figured this might be a good way to bridge that massive gap between Prototype Alex and Prototype 2 Alex. I figure Greene *had* to have had a hand in that huge personality switch. _

_Well it's better than what they showed us in the game, at least, explanation wise.  
_

_Plus, I mean, she has the same first name as me! And if that doesn't just scream "awesome," I don't know what does._


End file.
